This application relates to content delivery. More specifically, this application relates to ensuring compliance with geographical license restrictions on content delivery and to ensuring threshold service levels are met.
There are a number of methods of delivering content to customers. Some such methods deliver the programming directly to a individual business or residence by using satellite, microwave, UHF, VHF, broadband, or cable to a set-top box of a user. Most content is available according to a linear schedule published in programming guides. Certain additional services are available with some of these delivery systems, such as pay-per-view (PPV), video-on-demand (VOD), and near-video-on-demand (NVOD). A PPV service allows a user to purchase the right to play an entertainment program according to a linear schedule. A VOD service provides a user with the ability to access an entertainment-program stream at any desired time. A NVOD service is a hybrid service where an entertainment program is available on a number of different channels in a linear program with staggered start times.
Each of the PPV, VOD, and NVOD services store the program content remote from the user for delivery on a dedicated or shared channel. Both PPV and NVOD services provide programming broadcast according to a linear schedule, with multiple users sharing that single channel. In contrast, the VOD service singlecasts the program content on a dedicated or logically-separate channel available to a single user. For broadband program distribution, a server accessible over the Internet allows download of programs with a VOD experience to a local drive on a computer.
Other mechanisms for delivering content to users use physical distribution mechanisms such as digital versatile disks (DVDs). Typically such distribution mechanisms are provided for rent in a shop that is physically visited by a customer, who either pays for a one-time rental fee or who has a subscription package entitling the customer to borrow a certain number of the distribution mechanisms in a specified time period. More recently, such a rental model has been expanded to use conventional postal services for distribution. That is, a customer may provide a list of desired programming to a company, which mails a DVD to a customer, who watches the programming and returns the DVD by mail when complete; upon receipt of a returned DVD, the company mails the DVD having the programming identified next on the customer's list.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.